Baby Busters or the Lost Generation

"TOO YOUNG FOR THE HEAD SHOP? TOO OLD FOR THE MOSH PIT? THEN YOU'RE ONE OF THE MORE THAN 43 MILLION AMERICANS WHO WERE BORN FROM 1958 THROUGH 1968. YOU ARE A BABY BUSTER!"-- www.BabyBusters.org

The term "Baby Busters" was first coined in the 1989 book, America Now (later released under the title, Why Nothing Works: The Anthropology of Daily Life) by anthropologist Marvin Harris. Nestled somewhere between the Baby Boomers and Generation X, the Baby Busters were born between the years 1958 to 1968. They are called Baby Busters because the drop in birth rates beginning after 1957 was the start of the longest period of birth decline in American history. Often confused with Generation X, the Baby Busters actually overlap both the Baby Boomers who came before them and the X-er's who followed them in birth.

According to Wikipedia:

"The psychographic position of the Baby Busters and how they relate to neighboring generations has been the subject of considerable debate. Some insist that they constitute an entirely separate group, between the Baby Boomers and Generation X, while others reckon them as an older subset of Generation X."

I am a Baby Buster. Although I was born in the late summer of 1957, I relate to the Baby Buster generation. Caught between the hippies and the punkers. We were not a radical bunch. We were disco, a sad commentary on our view of society. And yet we knew that we were adrift. We just didn't have anything to hang onto.

Baby Busters were often the products of "broken homes" at a time when divorce was on the rise, quickly becoming much more acceptable and common than ever before. We were weaned on the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X. We spent each night at the dinner table during our childhoods watching the Vietnam War on the evening news. We were witness to the Kent State riots and the killing of college students at the hands of the police. In high school we saw Watergate unfold on national television and witnessed the subsequent resignation of the President of the United States. The Arab Oil embargo which caused dramatic gasoline shortages was happening just as we were finally getting our freedom with a driver's license and a car. Our college years included the abduction of Patty Hearst and the Iran Hostage Standoff.

Dean Anderson refered to the generation born between the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 in his book The Isolation Generation: the Incredible True Story of the Group Between the Boomers and the X'ers. He notes that this generation is a generation without an identity.

This group examined the generations before them, indecisively. Would they be rebellious or attempt to please their parents? In many cases, they are still deciding!

I can remember feeling exactly this way as a child. The conflict between what my parents believed in and what the generation before me believed in was played out each evening at the dinner table. My sister was a mere 3 years older than me but at that time those 3 years very significant in how we viewed the world. She was out to change the world. She was bold and wanted to step forward into the fray, protesting the government, questioning authority. I, on the other hand was cautious. I listened to my parents, seeking a sense of security and stability in a time of turmoil. I didn't want to fly headlong into a world with no rules. And yet, I was drawn to the activities of those young people just a few years older than me, who had such conviction and a moral cause. But, I could not really let go and join them.

As a "Baby Buster" I grew up in a time of turmoil when the institutions of Western Civilization such as marriage, family, government, police, seemed to be crumbling all around me. I understand why as a result, my generation was full of insecurities, hopelessness, or even worse, indifference. Many of us became cynical, hedonistic, and socially alienated. We did not become a generation of change. We had no social causes or purpose like the generation before us. We had no identity. We were and still are the Lost Generation.